Item AMarxists take a critical view of the role of education. Capitalist society is essentially a two-class system, with a ruling class exploiting the working class. Marxists see education as being run in the interests of the ruling class. For example, Althusser argues that education is an important ideological state apparatus that helps to control people’s ideas and beliefs. He suggests education has two purposes. It reproduces class inequalities through the generations by ensuring that most working-class pupils experience educational failure. Education legitimates this inequality, persuading the working class to accept educational and social inequalities. Other Marxists have also pointed to the existence of a hidden curriculum in schools.

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the contribution of Marxism to our understanding of the role of education. (20 Marks) Marxists believe that in the capitalist society in which we live, it is a “two-class system, with a ruling class exploiting the working class” who believe that education only benefits those pupils from a ruling class background. Society is based on the idea of exploitation and alienation of the working class and Marxists argue that education is the perfect way to achieve this and satisfies the needs of the ruling class as it provides a labour force who are obedient and easily exploitable. Althusser, Bowles and Gintis and Willis all have a different view on the aspects of education. Marxists see the state as the means by which the capitalist ruling class maintain their dominant position. Althusser argues the bourgeoisie uses 2 apparatuses to control people and maintain their power within society. The repressive state apparatus helps to maintain the rule of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it, e.g. using the police, courts and army and the ideological state apparatus which maintains the bourgeoisies’ power through controlling people’s ideas, values and beliefs. This includes...

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...Usingmaterialfromitem ‘a’ and elsewhereassess the contribution of Marxism to ourunderstanding of the roles of education in society.
Item A
Marxists take a critical view of the role of education. Capitalist society is essentially a two-class system, with a ruling class exploiting the working class. Marxist see education as being run in the interests if the ruling class. For example, Althusser argues that education is an important ideological state apparatus that helps to control people’s ideas and beliefs. He suggests education has to purposes. It reproduces class inequalities through the generations by ensuring that most working-class pupils experience education failure. Education also legitimates this inequality, persuading the working class to accept educational and social inequalities. Other Marxists have also pointed to the existence of a hidden curriculum in schools.
The Marxists helped contribute to ourunderstanding of the role of education in society in many ways. They went against the functionalists and even opposed one of the functionalist’s theories.
Marxists take a class conflict approach they see...

...UsingmaterialfromItem A and elsewhereassess the contribution of Marxism to ourunderstanding of the role of education.
As mentioned in Item A, Marxists take a critical view of the role of education. They see society as based on class divisions and capitalist exploitations. The capitalist society is a two class system as mentioned in Item A and it consists of a ruling class, the bourgeoisie and the working class, the proletariat. The bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat according to Marxists and they believe that the education system only serves the needs and interests of the ruling class, as mentioned in Item A. Marxists also education as functioning to prevent revolution and maintain capitalism.
According to Louis Althusser, the state consists of two elements or apparatuses, both which work to keep the bourgeoisie in power. Firstly, the repressive state apparatuses (RSAs), which maintain the rules of the bourgeoisie by force or the threat of it. The RSAs include the police, courts and army. When necessary they use physical force to repress the working class. Secondly, the ideological state apparatuses (ISAs), as mentioned in Item A, maintains the rule of the bourgeoisie by controlling...

...Usingmaterialfromitem A and elsewhere, assess the contribution of functionalism to ourunderstanding of families and households..
The consensus view of the role of the family is taken by functionalist, they believe it is a universal institution in which provided and performs essential functions which are needed for society as a whole as well as the family members. Parsons believe in a functional fit, this is within the nuclear family, as it fits into modern society and society’s needs as it is a family which keep up with society’s geographically and socially mobile labour force, critics of this argue that parsons is wrong with this idea of relationship between industrialisation and family structure. Marxist has different views as he believe the family are serving the economic and ideological needs for capitalism, the feminist view sees family serving not the ideological needs of capitalism but the needs of a man and the patriarchal control of woman. All of the following, Marxist, liberal and radical feminist believe in different causes of woman’s oppression and how it could be overcome. Alongside this all of the Marxist and other feminist views have all been criticised as they all have forgotten or ignored that fact that family diversity and individual’s capacity to choose the family arrangement.
Within item A we...

...﻿UsingmaterialfromItem A and elsewhereassess the contribution of functionalism to ourunderstanding of the role of education (20Marks)
In this essay I am going to assess the role and purpose of education in society according to different sociologists. I will go through some sociological theories and evaluate their perspectives usingmaterialfromItem A. I will then look at criticisms from different sociological theories, then I will draw up a conclusion to my analysis and evaluation.
Functionalists take a very positive view of education. They see it as a bridge between the family and wider society. The family operates on different standards compared to education and wider society. The family operates on particularistic standards whereas education and wider society operate by universalistic standards which makes education very useful because this means that children will learn to cope when they get put out of the home environment and into another setting. This is a perspective shared by Durkheim and Parsons.
Parsons also thinks that education operates on meritocratic principles. He thinks that through...

...﻿Assess the contribution of Marxism to ourunderstanding of society
[33 marks]
Marxism is a macro/structural approach to society, meaning that it looks at the large-scale societal structure for answers about how society works and operates. They believe that structure is categorised into two kinds of structure; the infrastructure and the superstructure.
They believe the infrastructure is made up of the economic base and is made up of the social relations between the producers and who owns the means of production. The superstructure however is made up of the social institutions of the modern day society. These can include agents of social control such as the family and the education system. Considering this it’s easy to see that they believe the superstructure is imposed around the infrastructure.
Marxism at it’s core, is about the class struggle, however, between the two groups isolated in the Infrastructure. Those whom own the means of production, and those whom use the means of production. The groups are called the Bourgeoisie, or ruling class, and the Proletariat, or working class. Most of the Maxist perspective is based on observations of the fast paced development of the western world, particularly the Capitalist countries however, as that is what they blame most, if not everything on, because they believe in the Capitalist society, the...

...UsingmaterialfromItem A and elsewhere, assess the contribution of functionalism to ourunderstanding of families and households.
In this essay, with the use of information fromItem A and elsewhere, I will go into an extent to explain the functionalist view of understanding of the role of families and households.
Functionalists believe that society is based on a shared value consensus, this is a set of shared norms and values into which society socialises its members, This enables society to work without any disagreements and meet society’s goals and needs. Functionalists believe that the family is regarded as a basic building block of society. George Murdock (1949) argues that the family performs four functions to meet the needs of society and its members. These functions are; economic needs, reproduction, primary socialisation and sex. Economic function is providing shelter and food for all family members. Sexual function is allowing the sex drive to be satisfied with one partner and therefore preventing conflict. Reproductive function means to produce next generation; have kids. Socialisation function is teaching the norms and values of society to offsprings.
He believed that those needs can only be met within a nuclear family. However, some sociologists would...

...﻿
‘UsingMaterialFromItem A and elsewhere, assess the contribution of functionalism to ourunderstanding of families and households’
According to functionalist sociologists, the family is a key institution of society. It performs vitals functions for the maintenance of society as a whole and for the benefit of all its individual members, for example according to George peter Murdock, it provides for the stable satisfaction of the sex drive and thus avoids the social disruption and conflict that could be caused by sexual ‘free for all.’ The family also reproduces the next generations and thereby ensures the continuation of society over time.
Functionalists tend to see the nuclear family as the ideal family type for modern society. For example, Parsons argues that it is the family structure best equipped to meet the need of industrial society for mobile labour force. The nuclear family performs two essential functions. Firstly when Britain began to industrialise from the 18th century onwards then the extended family became redundant and made way for the nuclear family. Parsons believes that this change happened because the needs of the society changed, he identified that post-industrial societies have two basic needs. First people had to be geographically mobile, as in a modern society. Therefore people had to be able to...

...﻿Assess the contribution of Marxism to ourunderstanding of families and households (24 marks)
Marxists see all society’s institutions as helping to maintain class inequality and Capitalism. Therefore, the main contribution of Marxism to families and households has been to explain how the family functions to maintain the interests of the bourgeoisie, and maintain the Capitalist system. Marxists’ contributions have drawn much criticism from New Right and Functionalist sociologists, who question whether Marxism can help us to understand the family in contemporary society.
Marxists are all in agreement that there are several functions of the family that are fulfilling for capitalism. Marxism is a believer in the separation of classes and the oppression of the lower working class. Marxists would argue that capitalist society is separated in to two social classes.
Engels would say that monogamy became more important so that the children of the capitalist classes would be able to inherit their parent’s property, companies and wealth. He argues that Capitalism depends on the patriarchal monogamous nuclear family. As women were becoming wives to working, successful husbands, they then became designed directly to do housework and socialise the children. A criticism of this would be that Marxists ignore other...

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